I'm sure most of you are thinking about bologne (the deli meat) when you read this. It may not be well known to North Americans but Bologna is the food capital of Italy - this is where the Italians go on vacation to eat!! It is also home to the oldest university in the western world - University of Bologna was founded in 1088.

Our only goal for this part of the trip was to visit the home of Parmesan cheese, super good Balsamic vinegar, and Parma Ham. All in one day? You bet.

Getting there

We took a train from Venice's Santa Lucia station to Bologna. I checked online at www.trenitalia.com and found out what time the Eurostar trains were leaving. We arrived at the train station about 90 minutes early and bought our tickets from the machines. We decided on second class tickets since we had heard the only benefit of the first class was a newspaper and drink cart.

bye bye Venice

in Venice the bus driver - boat captain at the helm

train station "panno Americano" for the Yanks

train station ice cream never looked so good

It wasn't hard finding the platform and our car. I was glad Mr. TC was there to lift our suitcases onto the luggage racks though since space was at a premium in the second class cars. The seats were perfectly comfortable for our short 90 minute ride.

- next go to visit a villa where they make special aged Balsamic Vinegar of Modena

- onwards to the Parma Ham (in this case Modena ham) factory

- lastly lunch at a typical Italian winery (cantina) and a vineyard tour

- back at hotel almost 4pm

Alessandro is the tour guide and is originally from Tuscany. He keeps things entertaining. He and his girlfriend Barbara (who didn't come on the tour since she's pregnant) were very good at answering our emails.

In the minivan with us was a girl in her 20's from Quebec, two women in their 40's from Washington DC, and a couple from Manchester on their honeymoon.

By the way the couple from Manchester told us instead of a wedding cake they had a tower of various cheeses. Sounds so yummy!!

Parmigiano Reggiano cheese factory

Everyone has to wear a paper coat over their clothes, no hairnets though.

They clean the factory with whey from the milk and not harsh chemicals. The whole place smells very earthy and old milk-ish. Takes some getting used to.

seriously, a cheese map

True Parmigiano Reggiano can only be made in a very small region in the world and factories have to apply for the internationally recognized designation. Milk comes from the surrounding farms.

As we are looking at the map in the entrance of the factory a cart of fresh ricotta rolls by. Fresh = made less than 5 minutes ago!

freshest ricotta ever

We enter and stand in awe of the huge copper kettles in front of us, each filled with 1000 litres of milk. It's enough to make 2 wheels of cheese each.

The milk comes in the night before and is allowed to sit overnight and then is partially skimmed and then added to the subsequent mornings milk. Fermenting whey from the previous day is also added to the copper kettle. After some slow stirring and heating, a natural milk extract called rennet is added (man this stuff is expensive) which initiates the cheese making!

The milk separates into curd and whey and then the curd is broken up into small rice grain sized pieces. The heat is really turned on now.

huge beater to break up the curd

there is a master cheesemaker who checks to see if things are cooked enough
if the curds stick together when he squeezes things are almost done

curd in cheesecloth which is put into a big circular mold
our guide Alessandro and the factory president

the mold that has the PARMIGIANO REGGIANO to engrave in the cheese

they brine in salt water from the Dead Sea for 25 days

We then go into the gigantic refrigerated warehouse where they age the cheese for up to 24 months. It's dark and they flick on the lights and it's like a scene out of X-Files. Cheese as far as the eye can see. This is seriously a foodie's dream!

I think there are 40,000 wheels of cheese in here

the cheese cleaning machine keeps the oil off the skin

the wheels that are too big for the cleaning machine get manually washes

Quality control

if there's too much air it can't be aged too long
cheese on the left is second class Parmesan
cheese on the right has so much air that it's just cheese :(

if it passes the test by the inspectors it gets branded

We end our tour being able to quality test the cheese with a percussion hammer. Some very cheesy photos too.

Finally exhausted from an hour long warehouse tour we get to sit and watch their cheese making video. They offer us red wine, freshly made ricotta, and awesome Parmesan cream spread on toast.

It is my new favourite food - Parmesan cream spread is just parmesan and whipping cream melted together in a double boiler. As if either of those foods didn't have enough calories on their own!

all we can eat Parmigiano Reggiano

ricotta made 20 minutes ago

Parmesan cream on mini toasts - so good!

Lastly we get to hit the factory store where locals also come and buy their cheese for the day.

Mr. TC wouldn't let me buy any to take home. His argument was that carrying 10 lbs in cheese in my suitcase across the rest of Europe made no sense when we could buy it around the corner at home. God, men are so practical!

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comments:

Too many typos in previous post. That's what I get for commenting while working...I LOVE CHEESE. Just sayin.' Wow, Hotel Novecento is beautiful. I absolutely love the room your stayed in. It's adorable!

What an adventure. Thanks for sharing this with us, can't wait for your next post!

Jen - I have been having typo fiascos lately from my iPad so I feel your pain. The hotel was really nice in the lobby too - very artsy but I don't have any photos because we always went straight upstairs :)

DD - yes the photos in this post were all ours! Courtesy of the new SLR camera I got last year for Mothers Day and the new lens my husb got himself for Fathers Day. We had so much fun taking photos of cheese - it was unreal.

Lisa - LOL your comment was so awesome I had to show my husband. He actually smiled. Yes I realize that I'm the only twilight travel blog I can think of so there is something different on mine. But that's why I need blogs like yours and Jens to get my Robsten fixes (and DD's to help keep my mental health afloat).The tour was very informative. Not over information for me since I love details and I'm a foodie but some people would be bored to tears listening to details about how many litres of milk, etc. Glad we did not have the kids for this trip.

I love that hotel room. It's so beautiful, cozy, warm, and then there's that fantastic bathroom. And, the view through that tiny window. My god, the view. Speaking of that window, my MIL gave us that plant, called "house happiness" when we moved in. It constantly leaked water, so we just said screw it. I was happy. Not the point of the plant, I know, but still. :D

Anyhow, I really wanted to bite into those perfectly round ovals of cheese. Mmm, yummy.

I was a little surprised at the beginning there. Didn't realize that you guys in North America weren't familiar with Bologna. Now I know how you feel when I ask a question like "who's that?" or "what's that?":D

I am literally in heaven when I read your posts. You make everything seem so... I don't know... magical?

It's a big expense for me to travel to Europe, but it's a dream of mine. You know how some people like to say they left their heart in San Francisco, well my heart is waiting for me in Europe. Somewhere... One day, I will find it. Thank you for posting.